


Castle Conundrum

by KtwoNtwo



Series: The Emperor's Edge Collection [5]
Category: Girl Genius, The Emperor's Edge Series - Lindsay Buroker
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Crossover, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:30:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KtwoNtwo/pseuds/KtwoNtwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world ruled by mad science, where eclectic savants or "sparks" consider the laws of physics "merely guidelines," the creation of interdimentional portals is not entirely unknown. As with most methods of ingress and egress such doors allow travel in both directions between worlds. At times this travel is entirely involuntary due to the sudden appearance of a gate where none had existed previously dumping the unsuspecting interplaner voyager into the world of Agatha Heterodyne, Girl Genius.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An AU for both Emperor's Edge and Girl Genuis. Previously published on fanfiction.net and the EEforum.
> 
> Emperor's Edge series, its characters and the rights thereto belong to Lindsay Buroker. All characters and other information from Girl Genius are the property of Phil & Kaja Foglio/Airship Entertainment. I am merely playing around with the characters for my own (and the reader's) amusement.

"Hmmmmmmm"

Ah, the mistress was happy the Castle thought to itself. That was a good thing. The Castle was pleased when the mistress was happy. It meant it was serving its proper function. The Castle settled down to listen to the not quite atonal humming issuing from the callipygous blond girl with her head in the machinery that took up most of the top of the southwest tower. She would let it know if and when she needed assistance.

"There's the power cable," she muttered half to herself. "Castle, is that live?" she asked in a bit louder voice.

"No mistress," the Castle responded promptly. "Would you like me to see if it's still connected to the internal grid?"

"Yes please," The Lady Agatha Heterodyne responded and then added "But if it is, leave it powered down for now. I don't want to fire this up before I have a better idea of what exactly it does."

The Castle chuckled to itself. The mistress was learning to be very specific in her orders. While it couldn't disobey a direct command its programming gave it quite a bit of leeway in interpretation. The Castle analyzed the statement for loopholes. Rats. That request as worded wouldn't allow it to put a power surge through the cable. No way to have fun with this. Well, maybe it could get an amendment to the order. The Castle decided to attempt it while it ascertained the status of the power cable.

"Where is your sense of adventure mistress?"

"Just concerned about structural integrity," she replied. "Both yours and mine," she added as an afterthought.

The Castle considered. It wouldn't do to have the mistress in pieces. While the young masters Gilgamesh (Gil) Wulfenbach and Tarvek (the Storm King) Sturmvoraus might be able to put her back together it most likely would seriously impact her reproductive opportunities. That would be clearly in the category of detrimental results. The Castle modified its internal programming slightly to include additional calculations in its ideas of _fun_ regarding protection of structural integrity. It wasn't like the old days with a plethora of potential Heterodyne heirs. In those days losing one or two just weeded out the herd making the spark, that undefinable aptitude for both madness and creative genius, stronger in successive generations. Now that there was only one heir the Castle would need to be somewhat careful at least until a multiplicity of progeny were running around.

The query routine information came back then. "Mistress, the power appears to be physically disconnected at West Node Number 12," the Castle reported.

"Hmmmm."

The mistress was deep in her thoughts the castle could tell by the tempo and pitch of the humming. It was unsure whether she'd even registered its comment.

"Have Von Zinzer get down there and see whether it's just unplugged or if there is actual damage," she commanded. "I'll send one of the little clanks down the power cable run to check for other problems. It should get there about the same time he does."

"Yes mistress," The castle responded then mentally went in search of the mistress' chief minion Moloch Von Zinzer. It found him digging around in one of the parts closets using one of the subsystems to inventory its contents. The castle relayed the order.

"West Node 12," Von Zinzer echoed. "That's the one accessed through the commode under the Servant's Stair near the Red Playroom?"

"Yes." the castle responded.

Moloch finished inventorying the part he was holding then put a mark on the shelf to mark his place. As he exited the storage closet he asked, "You are not going to run Happy Fun Ball of Death down the Portrait Corridor out of sequence again are you?"

The Castle chuckled audibly. It really liked playing with Von Zinzer. Of the minions he had the most highly developed sense of self preservation. The Castle could throw many of the same hazards it routinely saved for both sparks and heroes at Von Zinzer and he'd survive, skin intact. Even the smoke knights and the super-soldier Jägermonsters had some problems with the Castle's little traps but never Von Zinzer.

"I'm really not in the mood for running a gauntlet today Castle," Von Zinzer commented as he walked.

"Oh?"

"It started this morning when the Jäger's got bored. Actually, I don't think they'd been to bed and since Agatha had you lock them out of the wine cellar.  They were attempting to re-assemble a still in one of the foundation labs," Moloch complained.

The Castle was curious. Its sensors in the foundation area were few and far between so what went on there was somewhat of a mystery. "And this was a problem because?" it asked somewhat sarcastically.

"Because they roped both Gil and Tarvek into helping," Moloch was starting to build up a good head of steam. "Those two took over the project and had everyone, including me, running all over everywhere for parts!"

So that was what all the scurrying around in the basement this morning was about the Castle noted to itself. It had almost caught some of the Jäger's in its traps earlier as they'd rushed about the halls looking for who knows what. Come to think of it, until the mistress asked the Castle hadn't noticed Von Zinzer all morning. It decided to comment, "I deduce you managed to avoid most of the festivities by suggesting an inventory."

"Not exactly," Moloch replied. "They managed to get the still up and running but the brew cycle was going to be at least 12 hours. They decided they couldn't wait that long so most of them, the mad-boys included, went off to Mama Gkika's for a drink."

"And?" the Castle prompted. It was clear from his voice and how fast he was walking that Von Zinzer was perturbed. The Castle found annoying Moloch verbally was not quite as much fun as trying to toss him into the cistern with the mechanical squid. Unfortunately, the mistress had given some rather direct and specific orders regarding the harassment of minions in general and Moloch in particular. Now, as long as he stayed in the main corridors the Castle could only engage in verbal harassment. Still that did provide some amusement for a while. The Castle had become quite adept at making him twitch one way or another. Too bad that Von Zinzer was rather bright and learned quickly. It meant that the Castle had to work much harder to get a response. "Ah for the good old days," the Castle thought to itself.

"And we drew straws for who got to go and I was one of the losers."

That explained it. The Castle didn't really understand quite why but a majority of its organic denizens seemed to spend a good portion of their time looking for excuses to get out of the Castle. The Castle prided itself on providing a stimulating environment, admittedly by providing ample opportunities for near death experiences. Apparently the minions and a few of the Jägermonsters had decided that drinking in a bar full of hyped up super soldiers, assorted ner-do-wells and tourists was a more relaxing atmosphere. It was a little surprising that the young masters had both decided to go along. They at least appreciated the Castle's little jokes. Oh well, the Castle had learned long ago that predicting the whims of organic life forms was a major waste of processing power. One just had to learn to deal with that strange concept the Mistress referred to as "personal preference."

"Since I was staying behind anyway," Moloch continued in an exasperated voice "Gil assigned me the task of starting a parts inventory so you could direct people to where the components are stored and thus increase the response time."

Oooh. That sounded promising. The Mistress rarely disabled the Castle's surprises in the secondary corridors. Some of the storage areas were only accessible in specific ways. It could make getting into those locations very interesting. It wouldn't do to say anything about that. No that would just spoil the fun. The Castle responded mildly, "Explains the increase in activity in the cataloging subsystems."

"Yep."

The Castle noted that Moloch's ire seemed to be petering out now that he had vented it. That was good. Annoyed minions, as opposed to terrified ones, made an annoyed Mistress. An annoyed Mistress was definitely not good.

"So what's the Lady Heterodyne working on now?" Moloch's question interrupted the Castle's analysis of the mistress/minion feedback loop.

The Castle paused considering just how much to tell the chief minion. The Lady always insisted on explaining what she was doing. She said even if the minions didn't understand they often got enough of the concept to make the assistance more efficient. More efficient minions made happy Mistress. The Castle decided to engage in the same behavior. When no other parameters exist, act like the ruling Heterodyne was one of its base programing rules after all. "The southwest tower has a set of equipment originally built by Faustus Heterodyne and then later modified by Occam Heterodyne."

"So what's it supposed to do?" Moloch asked.

This time the Castle really hesitated. It really didn't like admitting weakness or talking about the years where its consciousness had been fragmented either intentionally by a member of the family or by circumstances such age and lack of repair.

Von Zinzer must have noticed the hesitation since he gently asked "Castle, you ok?"

At times like this the Castle was confused. Von Zinzer seemed to be genuinely concerned that the Castle was malfunctioning. Given its recent history of fragmented subsystems all working independently it had to admit this concern was probably valid. "All is functioning correctly," the Castle replied. Then for some reason it didn't understand it added, "It's just I don't remember much of Occam's reign and none of the equipment in that tower is hooked into my sensor array even though the tower itself is."

"You are telling me you have no clue then?"

"The original equipment was a remote cutting and excavating device but I don't know what Occam did to it and he wasn't one to store his notes in my memory" the Castle reluctantly admitted. At the same time it noted that this conversation was a major anomaly from previous patterns. It did a quick system integrity check. Ah, it was a new set of routines developing based on the Mistress' expressed likes and dislikes. Nothing to be concerned about then. It might even be able to use this. Lull the minions into a sense of security then lead them into a nest of Nyar spiders.

"Wonderful," Von Zinzer replied. "And we are supposed to plug this thing in?" he asked as he popped the access hatch to West Node 12.

"No. The Lady just wanted you to ascertain if the power system was disconnected or cut by damage. She wanted it to remain off until she determined the nature of the equipment," the Castle replied.

"Well, tell her it's just unplugged," Moloch replied from inside the access hatch. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

That last remark did not appear to be addressed to the Castle. Presumably, the small clank the Lady had mentioned had successfully traced the power cable. There was a whirring sound followed by a set of chiming notes. The Castle interpreted the communication and then relayed to both the Lady and Von Zinzer. "The dingbot reports that the power cable is intact."

"Good," the Castle heard the affirmation from both the Lady Heterodyne in the tower and Von Zinzer in the node housing at the same time. The Castle was always amazed at how quickly a competent minion and spark would meld into a symbiotic working relationship on a project. There were times it envied that connection.

"Give me an open line to Moloch" Agatha ordered the Castle and it complied. "What's it look like down there?" she asked directly.

"It's clean, all I have to do is plug the cable back into the node," was Von Zinzer's reply.

The Castle wondered again about a power surge. No, it concluded, the previous order about power was still in effect.

"This thing looks to be a machine to dig holes and remove debris. I've got a good handle on the calibrations so do you know of any digging or debris removal we need to do?" Agatha asked.

The Mistress knew what the machine did. Did that cancel order about leaving the power off? The Castle started an analysis.

"How about Lucrezia's secret lab off the Great Movement Chamber?" Von Zinzer suggested. "Part of it is full of rubble and no-one has touched it since half the roof fell in the second time."

"Uh oh" the Castle thought, "structural integrity alert!" "Mistress," it interrupted "I will not be able to monitor that area for results. I can only sense part of that room through the ceiling. I am disabled in that area."

"Not a problem Castle," Agatha soothed. "I'll go down to assess the results after I try this thing out. Plug it in Moloch."

A short while and an awful lot of power later the Castle attempted to determine if anything had changed. Its sensors in the Great Movement Chamber as well as those near Lucrezia's secret lab showed no difference. There appeared to be no structural or other damage and what it could sense of the rubble pile from the room above seemed to be unchanged. "My sensors show no change Mistress," the Castle commented.

"That's strange. I set it up to take just the top off the rubble pile in the lab as a test. Maybe I aimed too high," Agatha commented. "Well I guess I'll just have to go down and see if there are any results. In the mean time I'll shut the machine down up here," she added. "It should be safe to leave it plugged in at the node."

"Will do," replied Moloch. "Need anything else?"

"Meet you on the Grand Staircase and we'll go take a look at the results," Agatha replied and made a gesture that the Castle interpreted as "cut the direct communication link" so it did so.

The Castle continued to ponder the situation. The machinery was off. The Mistress had said so therefore it was off. There was still power flowing to and being used by the machine in the tower. The Castle analyzed it for dangers. It was a steady draw, unlike the sudden drain the Castle had felt when the machine was activated. The Castle concluded that it must be some sort of stand-by mode. There were many of its systems that remained powered but inactive until needed. This, obviously, was another one. Trusting that the Mistress knew what she was doing the Castle didn't even think to mention the continuing power consumption to anyone.


	2. Chapter 2

Searching Ravido Marblecrest's "summer house" for Forge related documents and artifacts was not an easy task. It wasn't the fact that the "summer house" was a huge edifice with multiple guest suites and entertaining rooms. That alone would have made searching the place tedious but the man, or one of his ancestors more likely, had apparently been something of a packrat. Every room was overstuffed with knick-knacks and the staff had not been assiduous in cleaning hard to reach places. Amaranthe constantly had to stop herself from wiping up dust as she searched. For the umpteenth time she wondered if it might have been better for her to interview the servants rather than Maldynado.

No, she thought to herself, the servants knew or knew of Maldynado. She would just be the strange lady the Emperor had tasked with investigating. She'd just end up spending more time establishing that she was trust worthy. Maldynado would get the same information in much less time and with a lot less effort even if he did have to interview them one at a time. Basilard and Yara would keep the rest of the servants in the ballroom until he was done. Asktyr was wandering around in a quasi-meditative state attempting to sense any active science artifacts. He'd located a few light globes so far. Books was ensconced in the library going through the household accounts and any other written records that they came across in their searching. That left Sicarius and her to perform the tedious job of going over the house with a fine tooth comb looking for evidence. All in all it was the best use of team resources.

They'd started in the basement and were now working through the first floor. If things continued at this rate Amaranthe figured that they might get to the bedrooms by tomorrow. She sighed and moved an absolutely hideous statuette of some warrior cast notable so she could see if there was a hidden compartment behind it in the bookcase. She looked, didn't see anything then started tapping lightly on the back of the shelf. Sicarius would disapprove, she thought. He had been after her all day to be more careful. He was convinced that any hidden compartment or passage would be trapped with something deadly. Her counter argument had been that if you needed to access a secret area you would need to do so quickly and thus a trap would only slow you down. Luckily Sicarius wasn't presently in the room so she could speed up her search without him shooting her disapproving looks. They had found some papers in a drawer and he was ferrying them down to add to the ever growing pile in the library.

She was almost finished with tapping on the back of the shelf when she heard Asktyr's voice from the hall say, "Hey! There's something happening."

Curious Amaranthe turned and started toward the hall to see what he was talking about. She only made it about half way across the room when she unexpectedly fell through the floor and into a dark cold void. She didn't even have time to scream.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After what seemed an interminable time, but which in reality was only a few heartbeats, Amaranth's feet impacted what felt like a stone floor. She automatically bent her knees to take the impact which was much less than if she'd fallen a great distance. In fact, it felt like she'd only dropped a foot or so. It was still dark and cold but Amaranth could smell dust, chemicals and a faint odor of mold. She moved her foot tentatively around to see if she could determine what, exactly she was standing on. As she did so a faint glow started to illuminate the room. The color was slightly greenish at first but then it rapidly increased to a normal gas light color and intensity. She noted that the light was increasing almost exactly at the same rate as her eyes adjusted to it. A clever use of science to avoid glare blindness she thought.

What the light revealed was even more astonishing. She was standing in a large stone room half filled with strange equipment. There were gears, wires and conduits all over the place. Things that looked like human sized glass fronted cabinets and a table with a mechanical wire and tube octopus-like affair hanging from the ceiling. There were a great number what looked like broken equipment bits and there was a huge pile of rubble at one end. The rubble appeared to have happened when part of the ceiling collapsed leaving a large hole. The whole place reminded her in part of the descriptions of the underwater lab Basilard and Sicarius had been held in crossed with the shaman's lab in the mine and the torture chamber in the dungeon under the Imperial Barracks. As she looked closer she realized that most of the equipment even in the more intact section of the room wasn't broken but merely in a state of disarray. Someone had left in a terrible hurry. It was an obvious assumption considering there was what may have originally been a secret door stuck half open in one of the walls. Through it the bottom of a spiral staircase was visible.

Amaranthe paused and thought for a moment. She had two options. One was to stay here and see if anyone came to rescue her. She knew the team would attempt to come after her, especially Sicarius. He'd done it often enough before. The other was to do a bit of exploring and see if she could determine where "here" was and thus rescue herself. She decided on the second option. But wait, she'd need to make some markings or something to let her "rescuers" know that she'd been here and which way she went. A quick search of the room turned up a rather large bottle of what looked and smelled to be paint. Now what to use for a brush? There was thick clump of what looked like black hair of some sort stuck to the table. It didn't appear to be human hair. It was too thick and shiny. Well, that would do if she could find something to attach it to. Ah. There was a strange looking clamp. With a little fiddling Amaranthe had what could be used as a brush. Taking the paint she used her makeshift brush to slop a large arrow pointing up next to the secret door and as an afterthought signed it with AL. That ought to be obvious enough she thought, as she recapped the paint bottle and started up the stairs.

She didn't get very far. Just around the first turn in the spiral staircase she saw writing on the face of some of the stair treads. The letters were several inches high and vary obvious. It seemed to be a series of messages meant to be read as one ascended the stairs with one line per stair. It read,

_"Wait!_  
 _Did you remember to:_  
 _Turn off the experiments?_  
 _Feed the beastie?_  
 _Taunt the prisoners?_  
 _Appease the Dark Ones?_  
 _Lock the gates?_  
 _Slay the hero?_  
 _Take out the trash?_  
 _Now you may gloat."_

Ancestors. It looked like something meant to remind an absent minded evil genius in some children's story what he or she was supposed to do and in what order. Who would put such a list on stair treads? It must be a joke of some sort. But then, Amaranthe remembered that some of the equipment back in the original chamber had also looked a lot like some of the devices Pike had used on her in the Beheamouth. She shuddered slightly. Maybe the list wasn't a joke after all. She wouldn't put it past some of the people associated with Forge to have had that sort of mind set. Hm, if she was dealing with that type of insanity the possibility of deadly traps had just gone up substantially. Amaranthe decided to be extra careful as she slowly continued up the stairs.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amaranthe paused in the doorway that exited the stairway into what looked like a bedroom. She'd climbed quite a distance, the equivalent of at least eight stories to get to this point, and the stairway continued up. Clearly she was no longer in Ravido's summer residence. Decision point, she thought. Continue up or investigate the bedroom? From what she could see of the bedroom through the doorway she thought there might be a window. If it had a view she might be able to figure out where she was. Amaranthe pulled out the paint jar again and put her initials on the wall next to the door. She then carefully stepped into the bedroom.

The bedroom was an ornate affair. Intricately carved furniture, a huge four poster bed with a canopy and heavy hangings to keep out drafts, thick rugs and a layer of dust on many surfaces that indicated the room had not been used for some time. Amaranthe spotted what appeared to be curtains on one wall. Remembering her fall through the floor she carefully skirted the edge of the room, testing each step before fully committing her weight to it. She made it to the curtains without incident and proceeded to open them.

"Blessed Ancestors" she hissed in surprise looking out the huge window. She was about three stories up over an interior courtyard in what could only be called a castle. Looking up she could see rooftops and towers indicating that this was only a small part of what appeared to be an absolutely huge complex. The construction was stone and brick but the style was like nothing she'd ever seen before. The edifice, what she could see of it, looked to be somewhat worse for wear. There was a hole in the side of one tower, several places where railings were missing, and what looked like a collapsed bridge jutting out from a door half-way up another wall. Somewhat surprisingly given the general air of decay, the windows she could see were mostly intact. "Where in the heck am I?" she wondered aloud.

She almost jumped out of the window when a slightly metallic sounding tenor voice answered, "Castle Heterodyne, of course!"


	3. Chapter 3

The Castle watched the Mistress as she hurried to the grand staircase. She seemed to be excited about inspecting the results of activating the machine. She was humming under her breath as she strode down the hallways and the Castle didn't think she'd appreciate one of the random death-traps at this point so it didn't trigger any. One of the fine points the Castle had learned over the centuries was that you interrupted a happy spark at your own peril. You never knew what one of the mad boys or girls would do if suddenly jolted out of the fugue state that many of retreated to when they were working. They often were quite destructive and the Castle was just starting to get a handle on repairs as it was.

Moloch Von Zinzer was another matter altogether. As he made his way toward the grand staircase the Castle attempted to kill him three times. The first was a simple pit trap. It hadn't had much hope for that one. The Castle suspected that Von Zinzer had somehow cataloged all the pit traps and hinged walls in the corridors since he avoided them with such ease. For a second attempt it electrified all the metalics, including the copper threads woven into the runner down the center of the hall, in the area where Moloch was walking. The subsonic whine from the equipment ramping up must have tipped him off since the wily minion merely stepped off the runner and continued down the side of the hall being careful not to touch anything metal. Drat, the Castle thought, it really needed to get the harmonics on that subsystem tuned. In a final bid the Castle used one of the automatons disguised as a decorative suit of armor. It took a swipe with its battle axe at Von Zinzer's head. He scrambled out of the way and pelted down the hallway with the automaton hard on his heels.

Unfortunately for the Castle one of the Jägermonsters entered the hallway just as Moloch ran past. It was Maxim, the young purple skinned ex-calvary officer. The Castle remembered him before he took the oath and the potion that turned him into one of the Heterodyne super soldiers. That was well-nigh 300 years ago, the Castle thought. He'd come out of the jägerbrau induced coma with his looks mostly intact. That was if you ignored the purple skin, purple red hair, pointed teeth and elfin ears. He'd also managed to avoid taking major damage over the years of fighting and searching for the lost Heterodyne. In fact, Maxim had acquired his armor assist glove early on in his first decade of service. The arm underneath had been damaged but not to the point of amputation and a previous Heterodyne, the Castle couldn't remember just which one, had developed a gauntlet to compensate for the injury. Since that time he'd not sustained any serious damage.

Maxim grinned as he saw the automaton pounding down the hall after Moloch. "Ho Kestle, let's dance!" he yelled happily as he grabbed the handle of the axe and used the automaton's momentum to swing it into the wall with a crash.

"No fair," the Castle objected "I almost had him!" The automaton was now out of commission due to its violent collision with the wall.

"If hyu'd been a liddle more subtile hyu might hef got him," Maxim commented, "Hy kould hear the chase two rooms avay."

Moloch came trotting back up to the wreckage and looked at it, "Thanks Maxim" he said. He then gave a quick look upward and muttered "I thought Agatha had told you not to play in the main corridors."

"You weren't in a main corridor until you turned the corner back there," the Castle pointed out.

"Technicalities" snapped Moloch.

"Der kestle iz korreck," Maxim spoke up. "In situations like dis de Rule uf hot pursuit applies. De Fun Sized Mobile Agony und Death Dispensers vork dat vay too. Dey'll chase hyu ontil hyu are dead or get avay."

"Well, hot is the operative term." Moloch was holding his hand over the ruined automaton. "If we don't do something about this it may catch fire." A sudden chime came from one of Moloch's pockets. He reached into it and pulled out the little clank that Agatha had sent down the power cable. "This should help," he muttered to himself as he made sure it was wound up. Moloch placed it on the floor saying "Fix this so it doesn't catch fire and repair it if you can," to the small machine. It dinged in response and waded into the battered pile of parts.

The Castle didn't really like the little clanks the Mistress made, it considered them a sort of vermin a type of electronic Minimouth. However, it did have to admit that they were quite the useful little repair tools. If given the correct instructions they were able to repair most anything. Sometimes, if the task was simple they even repaired things on their own. On the down side they were small, self-replicating, got into everywhere and to make matters worse they tickled. The Castle liked to smash them when it could get away with it. Given that this particular little clank was happily repairing the automaton the Castle decided to ignore it.

"Vere are hyu headed in such a hurry?" Maxim inquired falling in next to Moloch as he strode down the corridor.

"Grand staircase," Moloch replied. "Agatha was messing about with some sort of remote excavating equipment up in one of the towers. She decided to test it and we're going to investigate the results."

"So vere deed she test it?"

"On the rubble in Lucrezia's old lab."

Maxim smiled showing his fangs, "Dis kould be interestink. Hyu mind if Hy kome along?"

Moloch smiled back, "Not at all," he said. "Maybe you can keep the castle from picking on me on the way down."

"But he's not as fun as you are," the Castle protested.

"Deal with it or I'll tell Agatha," Moloch snapped.

The Castle grumped back, "Tattle tale."

Maxim was trying valiantly not to smile. "Kinder" he muttered under his breath.

The Castle heard and decided not to comment. Somehow the Castle always seemed to come off the worse in a battle of wits with the younger Jäger. Most of the rest of the Jägermonsters, with few exceptions such as the generals, were not the sharpest tools in the shed and the Castle could fool them quite easily. Maxim on the other hand was, despite his relative youth, quite smart and very subtle. It must have something to do with all that time he and his two compatriots Oggie and Dimo had spent running around Europa looking for a Heterodyne heir. Being out on their own that long had caused some major changes in the three of them. The Castle figured that one day all three would end up with General's rank.

The Castle examined its programing again. It was all main corridors the rest of the way to the grand staircase and the Mistress had directed no playing with the help in the main corridors. The Castle sighed to itself. Sometimes the Mistress' directives were no fun at all. It let Maxim and Moloch walk to the grand staircase without further molestation.

The Mistress was standing on the middle landing waiting. She looked a little surprised to see Maxim accompanying Moloch. She opened her mouth apparently to ask when a sonorous gong echoed through the halls. "What was that?" she asked.

The Castle took a quick inventory of its sensors. "The young masters have activated the chessboard function of the east courtyard," it replied.

"And that function does what exactly" Agatha asked?

"Is dat de kourtyard used to play battle chess?" Maxim queried before the Castle had time to respond.

"Yes" the Castle answered the second question first. "The chessboard squares register the movements of the pieces and activate in certain circumstances."

Agatha looked curious "What circumstances? Removing the pieces when they are taken?"

"Yes Mistress" the Castle responded but not completely. There was much more to it than that. Unfortunately Maxim took it upon himself to explain. Blast. That meddling Jäger was going to ruin the best chance it had at mayhem all day.

"Its battle chess. Hyu use live or automated pieces und dey fight. De vinner takes de sqvare."

Agatha turned to Maxim "and the activation part?"

"Vell, vun uf you ancestors liked to schpice up de battles a bit. Dere are automatic eksplosions, rundom crossbow fire und such built right in," Maxim elaborated with a smile.

"Can you tell the boys about this," Agatha directed the Castle.

"No mistress," it replied somewhat smugly. "I am unable to communicate in that courtyard. The Black Heterodyne did not like my commentary on his playing style."

"Hmph," Agatha grunted, "I guess we better go warn them." She started off in the direction of the east courtyard at a trot with Moloch and Maxim trailing behind. About seven steps later she suddenly stopped with a slight frown on her face. "This may take a while," she said half to herself. Then her face cleared as she came to a decision, "Moloch, you are with me," She ordered. "Maxim, go down to the foundation and check to see if there is any additional damage near or in Lucrizia's lab. I'll be down directly."

"Yes mam" Maxim saluted and headed off.


	4. Chapter 4

Amaranthe looked around for the source of the voice. There was no one in the room. The voice had appeared to come from in front of her. From outside the window perhaps? She looked at the window and realized that it would open onto a decorative ledge. Was someone out there? Carefully she unlatched the window and looked out to get a better view. No, there was no one on the ledge. Maybe if she spoke to the voice it would talk some more giving her a better idea of where the person was. "Hello?" she called tentatively.

"Hello" echoed the voice.

It was coming from somewhere around the window Amaranthe determined. "May I ask exactly where in the world Castle Herterodine is located?"

"Yes" the voice responded.

Oh great, Amaranthe thought, I'm dealing with a literalist. "So where is this castle located?" she asked.

"The town of Mechanicsburg, source of the Dyne," the voice promptly responded.

That was rather unhelpful. Amaranthe had never heard of such a place. Presumably the Dyne was a river. "And where are you?" Amaranthe asked?

"In the castle," the voice replied with a bit of what could only be amusement.

Amaranthe sighed. This was going to be worse than prying secrets out of Sicarius when she had first met him. She had to be clever and think. "Physically where exactly are you located?" she tried again.

The voice made a sound that was almost a chuckle, "In the castle."

There was something about the quality of the voice that Amaranthe couldn't quite place. It had strange reverberations as if the sound was echoing through a pipe. "Can I see you?" she asked. "Talking to just a voice is a little strange and we might progress better with mutual communication if I could see you," she added.

"You see me," the voice responded.

Huh? Amaranthe looked around. "I most certainly do NOT see you" she said starting to be annoyed.

"Yes you do," the voice taunted.

"So you are in the castle and talking to me over some sort of voice transference system," Amaranthe hazarded a guess.

"You could say that," the voice responded.

Amaranthe was thinking furiously. She was communicating with someone who lived in a rather worse for wear monstrosity of an edifice that had rather insane reminder notes carved into the staircase, contained what looked to be a medical lab as well as at least one rather nice bedroom suite. They presumably could see her or have some other method, maybe science based, of determining where she was located. Judging from the communication so far the man, she assumed it was a man from the voice, liked to engage in verbal sparring and would take any question she asked and answer it in the most literal manner possible. Well I'll try cheerful, upbeat and see if I can get him to talk about himself, she thought as she sat down on the window ledge. "So what exactly do you do in this castle?"

"I run it," came the prompt response.

"That must be a big job."

"Yes."

"There looks to be a good deal of maintenance involved," Amaranthe commented.

"Well, things were unsettled for a while," the voice responded. "I had to engage in major triage to keep primary functions going." The voice sounded like it was in some way annoyed at admitting failure to keep things in good repair.

"Ah," Amaranth remarked "It's always unsettling to have to leave things undone because other items have priority. This room," she remarked "seems to be in good repair." It was, however, dusty. The more Amaranthe looked at the room from her perch on the window ledge the more her fingers itched to give the room a good cleaning.

"Yes, the damage here was minimal."

Amaranthe queried, "Was there a war or some sort of civil unrest? It looks like that tower over there took a cannon shot."

"Yes" the voice remarked.

Remember, Amaranthe thought to herself, no multiple part questions. "There is only so much you can do when there is a lot of damage all at once," she commented to continue the conversation.

"True." The voice sounded resigned.

There was a faint sound of a gong somewhere in the distance. "What was that?" Amaranthe asked. The voice did not reply.

Well that was rude, Amaranthe thought. The gong sound must have been important but to suddenly stop talking without even excusing oneself definitely not polite. However, once again she reminded herself, remember the strange list on the stairs. The denizens of this place might not be quite sane.

Since the voice wasn't responding, Amaranthe decided to examine the rest of the room. She discovered that there were clothes in the armoire. Dresses made of what looked like silks and satins in a style that was unlike anything she'd ever seen. There were also breaches, shirts and vests with pockets in the drawers as well as a selection of ladies underthings. The owner of the garments appeared to have been a woman slightly shorter and much curvier than she was.

She then investigated the other exits from the room. One door lead to a nicely apportioned bathroom, the other into what looked like a sitting room. As she was peering into the latter the voice spoke again, "Ah, there you are." Now the voice appeared to be coming from the sitting room.

"Why did you stop talking?" Amaranthe asked.

"I had to deal with some resource allocation issues" the voice replied.

If Amaranthe had to guess it sounded slightly annoyed. "Is that a problem for you?"

"You don't know the half of it," the voice sighed in frustration.

"Maybe I can help," Amaranthe suggested. "Sometimes talking to someone can help you put your thoughts in order and come up with a plan." And maybe, Amaranthe thought to herself, if I can get you talking rather than just answering questions then I'll be able to figure out just who and where you are. "And I could probably do something about the excess dust in here," Amaranthe added on a whim. "It's obviously been a while since you've been able to allocate any resources to this particular suite of rooms." There wasn't an instant reply. Was the voice considering her offer or had it just stopped talking again as it had before?

"I accept your offer" the voice finally said after a minute or so. "There used to be cleaning supplies in the bathroom in the side cabinet with the towels."

"Well then," Amaranthe responded "I'll get right to it then. What do you want to talk about while I'm cleaning?"


	5. Chapter 5

The Castle hummed to itself spinning off subroutines of its consciousness furiously. If history was any predictor, things were going to get interesting quickly. It needed to be ready. The Mistress was going to go and help the young masters play with the Black Heterodine's chess set. Maxim was heading for the basement and there was that strange female who had seemingly appeared from nowhere in Lucrezia's bedroom. That didn't even count the Still which was chugging away creating some sort of alcoholic brew and the excavation machine that was powered on in the tower. Hopefully, it thought to itself, there wouldn't be another disaster that would leave it fragmented, unable to recombine its consciousness. No, no, the Mistress wouldn't allow that. But, just to be careful the Castle made a quick system back-up down to the throne in the crypt.

Once the backup was complete and the subroutines assigned the main part of the Castle consciousness located Maxim. It found him making his way toward the cellar access. The Castle knew that somewhere below the great movement chamber it would lose him in one of the many blank spots in the sub-basements. The ancient construction of the sub-basements was not amenable to retrofitting sensor equipment. That was annoying since the sub-basements often contained some of the most interesting items. Still, it wondered if maybe that mobile sensor the Mistress had been tinkering with might be useful if he could get Maxim to carry it with him. Now how to convince him to detour and get the unit? It might lie and say it was a new weapon. That might work.

"Hey Kestle, hyu want to come with me? We kan try that gadget Agatha made and see if it works," Maxim spoke up as he trotted down a staircase.

What? The Castle was surprised. No convincing required. What was the young Jäeger up to? Well if Maxim was offering then it should take advantage. "The mobile sensor is in the Mistress' second lab. You'll need to detour a bit to get it."

"OK, sounds goot," Maxim replied as he changed directions and increased his speed.

Some twenty minutes later Maxim had acquired the sensor. It was in the form of a chunky broach about the size of half a peach. Maxim had pinned it to his hat and the Castle was attempting to calibrate the connections on the fly. Ah, there. Input feed acquired but it was intermittent. "Maxim," the Castle asked. "Can you stand still for a moment?"

Maxim stopped moving and the input signal clarified. The Castle made an adjustment or two. Now to test. It dropped a stone from the hallway ceiling.

Maxim jumped back, "Hey, watch the hat Kestle. Hyu don't want to schmush your toy, do you?"

"Just testing," the Castle replied. The signal had stayed strong despite the leap Maxim had made to avoid the falling stone. The Castle opened the input feed completely. Instantly the Castle was flooded with conflicting information and its vocal apparatus let out a high pitched screech in protest. Maxim clapped his hands over his ears and dropped to his knees in the hallway as the Castle shut off the input from the remote unit. The screech cut off abruptly.

Maxim was the first of the two of them to recover. "Kestle?" he asked tentatively.

"Yes?" the Castle replied.

"You OK?"

"Yes." The Castle wasn't too sure at the moment however it wasn't going to admit anything to the Jägermonster. It was still sorting through the conflicting input and its surprising results. Something in the remote was interfering with the normal sensors and vice versa. Logically that meant it shouldn't turn the remote on fully until the edge of normal sensor range. Noting the new rule the Castle added a corollary, if it wanted to produce that high pitched screech to annoy or harass someone then turning on the remote would be just the thing. Would the screech work on normal humans the Castle wondered or did the Jägermonster's enhanced hearing make them more susceptible to the noise? It hadn't appeared to harm Maxim although it had knocked him down to his knees. The Castle would need to experiment later. "I have it calibrated now," the Castle lied.

"Well let's go then. We've vasted enough time getting this thing." Maxim took off at a trot heading again for the sub-basement.

Maxim's speech patterns were slightly different now the Castle noticed. He was talking without most of the heavy Mechanicsberg accent that many of the Jäeger's had. Was this important? The Castle searched its memory. No, the other Jägermonsters didn't tend to alter their accent. Maybe it was unique to the "smarter" Jägers? No. Maxim and his two compatriots? No. Unique to Maxim? Ah, yes that fits the pattern. When Maxim was being serious he tended to lose his accent. The more serious he was the less of an accent he had. Maxim's speech pattern had altered starting when he had suggested getting the remote. Now wasn't that interesting. The Castle filed that tidbit away for further analysis later.

Shortly thereafter the Castle was really getting the hang of switching back and forth between its stationary sensors and the remote. The first half dozen times the changeover had resulted in the screeching noise, admittedly to a lesser degree each time. The last set of switches had gone quite smoothly with not even a peep and the data stream had not been interrupted either. This was a good thing because Maxim was now below the great movement chamber and heading into one of the biggest sub-basement blank spots. Now would be the real test of how far the remote link would be able to project into the blank spot.

The Castle watched through the remote link as Maxim carefully moved down the corridor. There was a lot of rubble down here and a thick layer of dust. Maxim must be worried about structural integrity or maybe he was looking for straight mechanical traps. Whatever it was, he was being very cautious.

Maxim finally arrived at a door. In Lucrezia's typical style it had an ornate set of initials "L. M." over the heterodyne trilobite symbol engraved in the door. There also was no door handle. Maxim was stopped, staring at it judging from how still he was standing. Unfortunately the Castle couldn't communicate with him to tell him that Lucreiza liked to put pressure sensitive stones in the hallway to open her doors. The Castle made another note to itself to ask the Mistress to add a way to allow it to speak from the remote unit.

Maxim was actively looking about now. He suddenly froze again. The Castle saw a rock fly at the wall. Ah, Maxim had found the pressure stone and triggered it. Smart. There were many pressure plates that were electrified or otherwise trapped. The door popped open and Maxim entered the secret lab.

It was a good thing that the door opened outward the Castle thought to itself. Otherwise Maxim would have never been able to open it because just inside the door was a huge pile of rubble where the ceiling had collapsed in. Well, collapsed in was not quite accurate. It had been intentionally blocked when the false pink Heterodyne, Zola, had escaped from the lab. The blockage had shifted during the invasion dumping the rubble back into the lab making a big mess and presumably destroying everything under the pile. The Castle's normal sensors could just see the top of the rubble pile from the room above but not much more. The Castle couldn't tell if the excavation machine had even touched the top of the pile. There seemed to be no evidence, other than the massive power drain, that it had worked at all. The Castle was a bit disappointed. If the rubble pile had been moved it might be able to get a look at the lab with its normal sensors from the room above rather than to have to rely on the mobile unit. Rats.

In the time it had taken the Castle to determine its normal sensors were not going to be much help, Maxim had carefully started working his way over the rubble. Why was he going so slowly the Castle wondered? The rubble pile appeared to be stable. But wait, there were lights on in the lab. Lights. Hmmm. The Lady Lucrezia had been a big one for motion activated lights. They would light up when movement was detected and eventually turn off when there was a period of time with no motion. Maxim must have remembered this, the Castle surmised, and was treating the room as potentially occupied.

Maxim peeked around the corner of the rubble pile and looked into what remained of the lab. The Castle couldn't see any motion with the mobile sensor. Judging from the point of view shift of the remote Maxim had come to the same conclusion and had stood up. "Interesting," Maxim muttered under his breath "I vonder if the use of the machine in the tower triggered de lights?"

No sooner had the Castle registered Maxim's words it was distracted by a sudden power draw from the machine in the tower. What?! The power quickly settled back to its _standby_ level then suddenly there was another, much larger, power drain. Almost simultaneously through the remote feed the Castle saw a dark clad humanoid figure appear in midair and drop the five or so feet to the floor. It landed in a three point stance, both feet and one hand on the ground. It, no it appeared to be a male, quickly surveyed the room spotting Maxim who was standing half obscured by the rubble. The dark clad figure, the Castle could now see was dressed all in black with a shock of unruly blond hair, was visibly armed with a variety of daggers including one that he was holding. The figure went from his landing position into a zig-zagging run and then, using the experiment table as a launching pad, acrobatically flipped into cover behind a large piece of equipment.

"Nice moves," Maxim muttered as he ducked down behind the rubble pile. Maxim had apparently spotted the throwing knives and decided that using the rubble pile as cover was a good idea. The castle heard him unsheathe his sword as he cautiously peered back toward where the dark clad figure had hidden.

"Well, well," the Castle thought. "This next little bit is going to be interesting."


	6. Chapter 6

After an hour or so of conversation and cleaning Amaranth was almost done removing the dust and grime from the suite. She had also come to a variety of conclusions regarding the situation in which she found herself. One: She was nowhere that she had ever heard of even in some of the most outlandish speculative fiction that was currently popular in Stumps. Two: The person behind the disembodied voice appeared to be mentally unstable. He was like some of the homeless drunks she'd had to deal with as in enforcer back in Stumps. People who seemed to be relatively copacetic for one sentence and then would shift into a completely different mindset, sometimes with a different accent and mannerisms, and then shift back. This particular person seemed to have a " _helpful dedicated to the job_ side that oscillated with what sounded like a five year old with a serious sadistic streak. The latter gave her considerable pause since he seemed to have no concept of compassion for the injury or death he seemingly took great pride in inflicting on those he called _minions_ and _experimental subjects_. Three: The entire complex, if his stories an references were truthful, was riddled with traps, most of them which would cause death and have other potentially harmful effects. Four: he had a good portion of the complex under some sort of surveillance and control. It might be mechanical it could be mental sciences but from the conversation she had determined that he had control over many of the functions in the building, including the traps. Five: There was someone in charge called _The Mistress_. The Mistress seemed to be at least sensible and tried to reign in the sadistic impulses of the person behind the voice. The Mistress seemed to have acquired the complex rather recently and was still in the process of determining what was broken and prioritizing repairs. The Mistress also seemed to be the only person in the complex who could implement some of the repairs.

Amaranthe was faced with a dilemma. Return to where she arrived and await rescue or venture out further into the castle? The voice apparently didn't have any surveillance or control in the room where she arrived or the stairway. It had voice access in the suite she was cleaning but no traps or other nastiness. She could therefore go back to the lab and attempt to figure out how she had got here and how to get back without active interference from the person behind the voice. On the other hand, she could venture out of the suite and attempt to talk the voice into disabling any traps that she might encounter. She might even be able to locate The Mistress and talk her into helping. The latter was the more dangerous option Amaranthe concluded. Especially if the voice had classified her in the "experimental subject" or "minion" category. In addition, she only had the voice's assessment of the nature and temperament of The Mistress and she'd already concluded that the person with whom she was communicating was to all intents and purposes insane. She definitely needed some more information.

"By the way," she said, while twitching the bedspread into place, "I'm almost done here. Do you think The Mistress might have somewhere else that needs a good cleaning?"

"Oh yes," the voice replied "There are plenty of places that just need a good cleaning around here. The Mistress has not had time to delegate people for that yet."

"That might be intentional," she commented. "It doesn't do any good to clean if you are just going to mess it up immediately afterward by a repair project."

After a pause the voice replied in a somewhat surprised tone "Oh, I hadn't considered that."

"So where is The Mistress presently?" Amaranthe asked.

"She is currently leaving the chess courtyard," the voice replied.

"Where is she going?"

"I think she's heading for the basement again. That was her original destination before she was interrupted."

This was better than Amaranthe had hoped. The voice wasn't giving oblique answers to questions anymore. She apparently had made some progress in gaining his trust. "What's in the basement that she's interested in?"

"She is checking on the results of a rubble removal experiment in the Lady Lucrezia's old laboratory."

Lucrezia. That name was familiar. One of the hairbrushes on the vanity had that name engraved on it. In addition, there were a variety of items monogramed with the initials L M in the suite. I bet this suite also belonged to this Lucrezia, Amaranthe thought to herself. Odds are the lab mentioned was the room where I landed. There certainly was enough rubble in that room to warrant a _rubble removal experiment_.  Amaranthe remembered that one whole side of the room had been a giant debris pile.

"Would that be the large room at the bottom of the secret staircase leading out of the bedroom?" Amaranthe asked.

"Yes," the voice replied. "The Mistress should be there shortly."

"Well, I guess I'd better get going if I want to meet her there," Amaranthe replied. "It's quite a long ways down." Amaranthe headed toward the secret stair then stopped as an idea struck her.

"Excuse me," she asked the voice, "what's the proper form of address for your mistress?" It wouldn't do, Amaranthe thought, to insult the very person you wished to have help you by calling them the wrong name or title.

"She is properly the Lady Agatha Heterodyne. You can call her Lady Heterodyne or Mistress Heterodyne I suppose" the voice said in a somewhat annoyed tone.

"Now what are you upset about?" Amaranthe thought she was getting rather good at judging the voice's many mood swings. From tone and phrasing something about her going down to meet the mistress was bothering him.

There was a long pause before the voice said, "I don't have much access down there." There was another pause that ended with a muttered "I was hoping to introduce you."

"Oh, I'll introduce myself," Amaranthe replied. "You are so terribly busy with all your responsibilities it's really not worth my taking up any more of your valuable time."

"Well, alright," the voice was grudging in its acceptance. "You can relay that I found you," the voice hesitated apparently looking for a word, "useful."

"I will, and thank you for talking to me," Amaranth called back as she started down the secret staircase.


	7. Chapter 7

Maxim was carefully moving using the rubble pile as cover. The Castle was amazed at how quietly the Jäger could move when he wanted to. It was obvious by the way the link on his hat was tilted that he was listening intently for any sign of the dark clad figure. Given the Jäger's sensitive hearing he might even be listening for sounds of breathing.

That gave the Castle an idea. It upped the sound sensitivity in the remote link. Interesting. No sounds other than Maxim's quiet movement and his occasional deep breath as he attempted to get a scent. Whoever that male in black was, he was certainly skilled at moving silently.

Maxim had been working his way up as well as around the rubble pile and he now seemed to be crouching near the top. The castle expected the jäger to jump out and attempt to surprise the intruder but instead Maxim took the link off his hat. He then held link up next to his throat and started to subvocalize. "Kastle," he said, "Tell the Lady ve have an intruder. I'm going to capture him. I vill try and keep him in one piece for her. Mostly," Maxim added as an afterthought.

The Castle was just about to shift focus to locate the mistress when Maxim continued, "This may get interestink so I'm going to put the link down on the pile where you can see most of the room." With that Maxim carefully wedged the link into the rubble so that the majority of the lab was visible.

"Hmmm," the Castle thought to itself. Did Maxim know that the sudden destruction of sensors often resulted in momentary system disruption? While it wasn't really what organic forms described as "pain" it was a bit disconcerting and slowed down processing speed. Maybe he was just ensuring that he didn't break one of the mistress's new toys? The Castle discarded that idea immediately. Maxim was a Jäger. In general Jägar's were not overly concerned about breaking things. So why did he put down the link? The Castle diverted a few subsystems to analysis.

While it was analyzing Maxim's behavior the Castle thought it had better inform the Mistress. While heroes and other sorts of organic incursions were fair game as far as the Castle was concerned it did have the duty to inform the Mistress just in case she wanted to play with them herself.

It located her as she was entering the great movement chamber. Surprisingly Moloch was not with her. She must have left him in the chess courtyard with the boys. "Excuse me Mistress," the Castle spoke loudly to be heard over the sound of the great water wheel that harnessed the energy of the Dyne River as it gushed from its subterranean source. "Maxim has discovered an intruder in the Lady Lucrezia's Lab."

"An intruder?" Agatha looked up startled. "How did an intruder get into that lab? It doesn't have any outside access."

"He appeared in mid-air and dropped to the floor," the Castle replied. "Maxim is attempting to catch him."

"Mid-air," Agatha echoed, clearly puzzled. "Did you sense any anomalous energy discharges or power drains?" she asked.

"No mistress, but the machine in the southwest tower has been intermittently drawing inordinate amounts of power," the Castle replied.

"Power," the mistress muttered under her breath. "Secondary targeting system, conservation of matter. Hmmmmmm."

The Castle listened closely. From the tone and tempo of her humming the Castle concluded that the Mistress seemed to be thinking as opposed to being thrown into experiment mode by the new information. It relaxed a bit. The last time a Heterodyne had gone into experiment mode in the great movement chamber the water wheel and the backup battery system had ended up being completely redesigned. Given that the Castle's very consciousness depended upon a sufficient flow of energy having someone, even the ruling Heterodyne, messing with its energy source made the Castle uneasy.

"Blast." Agatha said suddenly. "He had to send the debris somewhere. That secondary targeting system allows it to be put wherever it is needed. Elevation, distance, direction, but that last dial. Hmmmm."

The Mistress was patting her foot as she hummed. The Castle didn't quite know what to make of that. She usually tapped her foot when she was annoyed. However, she hadn't made the heterodyning hum when she was annoyed before. This was new. The Castle paid close attention.

"How much power did it draw Castle?" she finally asked.

"A good sized lightning bolt worth," it replied. "I've not had to tap my reserves yet but I estimate less than two additional draws of that magnitude and I'll need to shut down some of my outlying sub-systems."

The Mistress had a look on her face that the Castle had come to interpret as a grimace. "Oh, dratted ancestors," she exclaimed. "He was throwing the debris into another dimension. Damn and blast, he created a portal and now someone has fallen through it!"

The Mistress was not pleased. Luckily, the Castle mused, she wasn't angry at it. No she was irked at the experiments of her ancestors. Well, it thought, she'll get used to it eventually.

"Ok," Agatha instructed. "Get Moloch back up to that node and have him stand by to pull the plug on my say so. I'm going to see if I can go rescue that poor man from Maxim's attempts to catch him."

The Castle started chuckling. It couldn't help it.

"What's so funny," Agatha snapped.

"The intruder has, up to this point, evaded Maxim's capture attempts," The Castle commented. "He's very skilled." Agatha didn't comment so the Castle continued "From watching the festivities I calculate an 84% chance that the intruder is attempting to subdue but not kill Maxim. I can't give you odds regarding the winner of a full on fight between them without more data."

"Wait, I thought you didn't have sensors in Lucrezia's lab," Agatha queried. "Just how are you getting this data?"

"Maxim grabbed your remote sensor before he came down here. He's perched it on the top of the rubble pile so I can sense most of the lab," the Castle reported.

"So what's happening now?" Agatha asked.

"It seems the fight has moved up into the equipment support structure near the ceiling. The intruder is using the difficulty in movement to counter Maxim's superior strength."

A loud "harrumph" was the only reply the Castle got as its Mistress stomped off toward the Lady Lucrezia's lab.


	8. Chapter 8

About halfway down the spiral stair Amaranthe heard the fighting. The distinctive clang of metal on metal along with the occasional crash as something was tipped over. She increased her speed down the staircase and paused at the door to assess the situation.

The lab was even more of a mess than it had been when she arrived. Several of the cabinets had been knocked over and there was more stuff hanging loose from the ceiling than she remembered. Sicarius was there, standing on one end of the lab table facing off against, well she couldn't quite determine what it was. It looked human except it had purple skin, pointy ears and what looked like a mechanical glove on one arm. It was wearing a coordinated purple outfit, a cavalry hat that Maldynado would covet and was holding a saber. Sicarius was fending him off using a pry-bar and his black dagger. Amaranthe was afraid to say anything for fear she'd break Sicarius' concentration. That purple guy looked absolutely deadly. Maybe she could move around so that she could distract the purple fighter to give him an opening. She started moving quietly while looking for something small enough to throw.

As she started to move there was a loud crack from up near the ceiling. Both Sicarius and his opponent glanced up just as the entire structure supporting the hanging equipment broke loose and fell. Both combatants dived for the cover of the table.

"Sicarius!" Amaranthe screamed even though she realized that there was nothing she could do as the equipment crashed down.

As the dust from the crash rose up Amaranthe heard an annoyed female voice shout "Maxim!" from the other side of the room. A well-endowed blond was standing with her hands on her hips surveying the wreckage. She was wearing a skirt, some sort of leather corset and a tool belt. From the tone of her yell she didn't sound upset. No, she sounded more like an exasperated mother scolding a small child for being too rambunctious in his play.

The lady stared intently at the pile of ruined equipment for a moment and then she looked over at Amaranthe and smiled. "It was most likely unusable anyway," she remarked conversationally as she made her way toward where Amaranthe was standing. When she reached Amaranthe she said "Hello, I'm Agatha Heterodyne," extending her hand to shake.

"Amaranthe Lockton," she replied on automatically accepting the grip. So this was the Mistress the voice had been going on about. She didn't look like she was a nut case but she seemed awfully calm given that her whatever he was and Sicarius had apparently just been squashed by a pile of broken equipment.

Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face because Agatha continued "I don't know if you saw from this angle but they both managed to scramble under the table before all that stuff hit. If they haven't killed each other I suspect that they are both alright."

Amaranthe for once in her life didn't quite know how to respond. The only thing that she could think was that this was shaping up to be one the most surreal conversations she had ever had in her life.

Introductions out of the way Agatha asked, "So how exactly did you get into my basement?"

"I fell through the floor of a manor house parlor," Amaranth replied while keeping one eye and ear on the rubble pile.

"And you are from?" Agatha continued curiously.

"The Turgonian Empire," Amaranth responded somewhat distractedly. There was still no motion, sound or other indication that Sicarius had survived the ceiling collapse.

"Never heard of it," Agatha said cheerfully. "Is that located in the Americas or near China perhaps?"

Still looking at the pile of broken equipment Amaranth responded automatically, "South East of Mangdoria, East of Kendoria and across the Earathu sea from the Kyatt Islands and Nuria." She was becoming concerned that minutes had now passed with no sign of life from the pile.

Agatha must have noticed her increasing concern because she suddenly moved up right next to the pile of broken parts "Maxim," she called loudly, "get out from under that table please."

"I is occupied" came a strangled sounding reply.

"Sicarius?" Amaranthe moved to join Agatha. "What's the situation?" There was no immediate response and Amaranthe realized that Sicarius, if he was alive, was waiting for the code phrase that indicated she was safe and not under duress. "Sicarius, if you don't respond I'm going to make you wear whatever Maldynado proposes next as the team uniform!"

"Stalemate," came Sicarius' familiar monotone from under the pile.

Amaranth breathed a covert sigh of relief. Sicarius was alive. She deduced from his response and the purple skinned man's prior statement that the two of them probably had knives at each other's throats. Now how to defuse the potential that they'd kill each other? Amaranthe decided, "You can let him go. This is more a palavering situation now," she told Sicarius.

Agatha had apparently come to the same conclusion about the state of affairs under the table because she chimed in "Maxim, quit messing around and get out here, I need you."

There was no audible response but after a heartbeat or two the pile shuddered and a black cavalry boot kicked away some of the debris. It was followed by the rest of the purple skinned man; Maxim was what the Lady had called him. He grunted as he levered himself out from under the table. Once out, he brushed himself off and sheathed his cavalry saber.

There was another crash from the far side of the table as Sicarius extricated himself from the rubble. He was covered in dust and his hair was even more disheveled than usual. He took a quick assessment of the room, nodded to Amaranthe and proceeded to focus most of his attention on Maxim. Sicarius obviously considered him dangerous even with the sword sheathed.

The Lady, Agatha, didn't pay much attention to either of the former combatants. Instead she was looking around the room for something. "Do you know where you landed?" she asked Amaranthe.

Amaranth looked around to locate the spot where she had first. "Right over there," she pointed and started to move in that direction.

"Stop," Sicarius growled.

"Look at ze dust in the air," Maxim chimed in.

Amaranthe stopped and looked. The dust raised by the ceiling collapse was disappearing in midair about six foot off the floor just over where had first landed.

"Wonderful," Agatha exclaimed. "A truly stable portal. No shift at all. There must be an automatic compensation for the earth's rotation. This will be much easier to deal with than I anticipated." Her face grew speculative. "I wonder if it's similarly stabilized on the other end?" she asked rhetorically.

"Yes," Sicarius answered.

Agatha looked at him cocking her head. "How do you know?" she asked.

Sicarius glanced over at Amaranthe. She interpreted his glance as a question. He was asking if he should answer. She nodded fractionally while covertly hand signing "Akstyr holding it open?"

"The hole in the floor isn't moving" Sicarius remarked with his customary emotionless delivery. His hand made the affirmative sign in response to Amaranthe's question.

"Oh," Agatha looked startled that someone had answered. "I guess that would be rather obvious."

From the look on Agatha's face she was thinking furiously. In addition, Amaranthe noted that she seemed to be humming to herself under her breath. She glanced at Maxim. He didn't seem to be alarmed or surprised by the Lady Agatha's sudden abstraction. This must be somewhat normal behavior Amaranthe deduced. She supposed that not everyone had the capacity to fight and plot at the same time like Sicarius did. Ancestors knew that she herself came up with her best ideas while lounging in the bath doing nothing much or while cleaning.

Sicarius took advantage of Agatha's distraction to move closer to Amaranthe. He stopped close enough so as not to hinder her actions but near enough to protect her. Maxim didn't object. He simply stood in the relaxed ready position that was common to most all highly trained soldiers. His stance alone told Amaranthe that Sicarius had been correct in identifying him as the biggest physical danger in the room.

After a minute or two Amaranthe cleared her throat and asked "Do you think it would be safe to go back through from this side or would we end up somewhere completely different?"

As she spoke, Amaranthe caught Maxim wince slightly out of the corner of her eye. "Uh oh," she thought. "Did I just insult her?" Sicarius tensed fractionally. He'd noticed the wince too.

Nothing happened for a moment then Agatha waved one of her hands vaguely. "No it should be safe and put you right back where you came from. The portal appears stable that way. What I'm concerned about is the power issue." She trailed off and started humming again.

"The power issue?" Amaranthe prompted when it became obvious that Agatha wasn't going to resume talking. She was rewarded with another, more obvious, wince from Maxim and a corresponding reaction from Sicarius.

Once again Agatha answered with a half-there look on her face. "There's a substantial amount of power needed whenever something goes through the portal. I wouldn't want to send one person through and then not have enough power to get the second person back. Given the system dynamics we wouldn't know if there was power enough until the second attempt. If there wasn't," she paused and focused her full attention on Amaranthe, "the best result would be that you'd end up in pieces. The worst would throw you into some random alternate dimension somewhere between here and your home."

"Unacceptable," Sicarius muttered under his breath and Amaranthe silently agreed.

"I don know. Could be fun," Maxim commented.

Amaranthe realized that not only did Maxim have superior hearing but also either a healthy amount of sarcasm or a rather warped sense of fun. Well, she supposed, living in a castle full of death traps must require a peculiar world view.

"Now how to minimize the power draw?" Agatha continued thinking aloud as if she had not heard the side comments. "Since it was meant for rubble disposal and needed to be at least somewhat efficient power use must not have a direct correlation to the amount of mass displaced…..hmmmm."

Amaranthe realized that the humming was some sort of aid to Agatha's thought process. "Ah," she thought to herself. "That explains why Maxim was upset by my talking. I was interrupting her thinking and he was afraid she'd be upset." Amaranthe resolved not to interrupt again.

Luckily for the state of Amaranthe's nerves Agatha only hummed to herself for about a minute or so before suddenly shaking her head. "Obvious solution is to get you two through at the same time!" She smiled brightly. "I suppose I could build something like a catapult to throw you through," she mused. "Of course I am assuming you want to go back and not stay."

"Yes" Amaranthe answered her. "Your assumption is correct." Remembering the touchy nature of the disembodied voice and belatedly realizing that her comment could be construed as a slur on Agatha's home Amaranthe quickly continued, "Not that here isn't nice but…."

Agatha interrupted with a strange smile "I know. There's no place like your own place and you'd much rather not be stuck here."

Amaranthe got the distinct impression that Agatha had, at some point in her life, been stuck somewhere completely unfamiliar unable to get home. She noticed then that Maxim had shifted from his "ready" stance to something more relaxed. He also appeared to be eying the distance between the ground and the portal. He then turned and looked directly at both Sicarius and herself.

"It's just high enough so Hy von't be able to toss both uf them through at de same time," Maxim remarked. He took a breath to continue whatever he was saying but before he could speak both Agatha and Amaranthe burst into speech.

"Can you…" Agatha started, looking at Sicarius.

"Timing would be…" Amaranthe trailed off when she caught a look at Sicarius. Not that anyone other than her would ever realize it but he was seriously considering the plan. He gave her one of his fractional nods then looked intently at Maxim. Maxim met his gaze calmly then gave a one shoulder shrug. Amaranthe interpreted it as "I can do it. You just need to decide if you want to trust me." Amaranthe didn't catch it but something in Sicarius' face or body language caused Maxim to nod in reply and grin, showing his fangs. Somehow Maxim and Sicarius seemed to be communicating just fine without words. Just what had happened during their fight, Amaranth wondered?

Amaranthe heard Agatha let out the breath she'd been holding. Apparently she'd caught the silent byplay between the two men and had been somewhat concerned about the potential outcome. "I could rig a spring board if that would help?" she offered.

"Unnecessary," said Sicarius.

"I don't think he'll need vun" agreed Maxim.

A short time later after a rather intense discussion of angles, trajectories and a quick perusal of the layout of the manor house parlor using a map drawn in the dust of the floor by Sicarus, everything was ready. Maxim had removed his saber and handed it to Agatha to hold. Amaranthe thought it was rather thoughtful of him given the fact that Sicarius' was still regarding him with caution.

The plan was simple despite Agatha's offering to build a variety of implements to "help." Sicarius would take a running jump while Maxim would give Amaranthe a toss, timing it so that they both would impact the portal together. Once on the other side Amaranthe would drop a rock back through to let Agatha know that they had made it and that it was safe to shut down the portal. After observing the action of the dust, Agatha had hypothesized that the massive power drain was caused by the transport of living beings across rather than just inert matter. Thus there should be enough power to get a rock back from the Turgonian side. "If not", Amaranthe thought to herself, "it probably won't matter to me anyway as I'll either be dead or stuck ancestors knows where."

Agatha stuck out her hand again and Amaranthe took it. "It was nice meeting you," she said. "I do apologize for the inconvenience."

"Not a problem," Amaranthe replied. "There's no way you could have known that your ancestor's machine would have such a side effect. Just make sure you get it shut down so that no-one else accidentally falls through."

Agatha nodded, "Agreed. I might get a Dragon from Mars next time. Worse yet, can you imagine what would happen if the portal opened underwater on the other side? It could flood the entire basement!"

Amaranthe winced and agreed, "I wouldn't want to clean up the mess a flood like that would cause."

"You are stalling," Sicarius said. He had backed up to his starting position and was looking at her expectantly.

Amaranthe sighed and turned to Maxim who obligingly went to one knee and laced his fingers together. Amaranthe put her foot in the cup of his hands so he could fling her toward the portal when the time came.

Agatha also backed up to give the operation some room. "On my mark," she said. "Three, two, mark!"

Sicarius took off at a run. Amaranthe felt Maxim tense as he judged Sicarius' speed. Likewise, she prepared, just in case she had to push off Maxim's hands to make the portal.

"Now!" yelled Agatha and Amaranthe felt herself lifted and thrown toward the barely outlined portal at the exact same time as Sicarius jumped.

She wasn't at all surprised that Sicarius caught her around the waist as they impacted the portal together.


	9. Epilogue

The black and the cold engulfed Amaranthe but this time she could feel Sicarius' arm around her waist, drawing her close. Just as suddenly as they had entered the portal they were spit out the other side into the Marblecrest Manor's parlor. Just as Agatha and Sicarius had hypothesized there was no significant loss of momentum when traveling through the portal. What they hadn't counted on was Maldynado. He just so happened to be standing in their direct trajectory looking down into the rather obvious black hole in the flooring. They crashed into him and the three of them went tumbling hitting the far wall with a loud thud. Maldynado, being on the bottom of the pile, took the worst of it.

"Emperor's warts boss" he complained as they disentangled themselves, "If you'd wanted some alone time with Sicarius you could have just said something."

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Castle watched Agatha strolling down the portrait corridor holding onto an ugly statuette of a strangely dressed warrior and reading a note. The statuette and note, wrapped in paper and cloth to prevent damage, had dropped out of the portal hole some ten minutes after the man in black and the chatty female had gone back through it. The Castle could tell the Mistress was seriously pleased. She'd even said as much to Maxim as they left the Lucrezia's lab. Apparently, Amaranthe had wrapped the statute in a goodly portion of the local newspaper. This would give Agatha some nice data about the universe she'd inadvertently connected to. She also now had a sample of artwork and textiles. Agatha had commented to Maxim that this information could be invaluable if she ever decided to "go and visit" as she put it.

The Castle didn't like the sound of that last and was very relieved when the Mistress ordered Moloch to disconnect the excavation machine at the power node. It just wouldn't do to have the Mistress leave before providing an heir or two or preferably half a dozen. "Yes," the Castle thought to itself, "six or seven little Heterodynes and I could have so much fun!" The Castle was musing on this happy potentiality so intently it almost missed the Mistress' question.

"Hey Castle," she said looking up from the note. "How would you like your very own cleaning crew?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always (with apologies to the Bard):
> 
> If this writer has offended,  
> Think but this and all is mended.  
> That you have but tarried here,  
> While each chapter did appear,  
> And these words upon this theme,  
> Are of no import, only my dream.
> 
> It has been an honor to share my dream with you.
> 
> K2N2


End file.
